


Always save One

by starstruckawe



Series: The End of The World [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Graphic Description of Corpses, Guns, Heavy Angst, M/M, Not Tagging A Lot to Avoid Spoilers, Shock, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 09:21:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruckawe/pseuds/starstruckawe
Summary: Keith can feel it. Something's wrong.





	Always save One

**Author's Note:**

> Please read endnotes, but only after reading this story.

Lance had been taking too long. Keith paced back and forth, nearly wearing a hole in the floor of their safe house. Allura had come back, Lance had not. He sat on the couch and placed his hand to his cheek in thought. Shiro had stumbled in, Lance had not. Pidge was back. Hunk was back. Lance was still out. Night was falling soon, and he might not make it back in time. If the Sun fell while they were outside, who knew what could happen to them.

“Where was Lance when you left, Allura?” Keith asked, almost biting at his nails. His leg was bouncing, the wooden plank under his foot creaking. His other hand gripped a shark tooth necklace as hard as he could without breaking it.

Allura looked at him. “Across the town. Why? He’s not taking too long, I only got back when I did because I found a bike.”

That didn’t help Keith’s anxiety. The man forced himself off the couch, resuming pacing. His footsteps came down heavy. Thump. Thump. Lance could be in danger. Thump. Thump. Why was he gone for so long?

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Keith couldn’t shake the idea that something went wrong. Something deep inside him felt off. It was almost like he could feel any pain Lance might have been feeling. The sounds of his footsteps went dead as he fell deeper into thought. Where was Lance? Lance should have been back. It was an hour into the town. They would stay and loot for five. An hour back to the safe house. Seven hours. Lance had been gone for eight. It was wrong. The timeline was off. Lance had to have been back. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. The necklace felt heavy against his chest.

“I’m going into town,” Keith announced, pausing mid-stride. Allura raised an eyebrow at him. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it. He should be back.”

 

The sound of footsteps on concrete was so different than on wood. Instead of a reassuring thump every time a foot came down, it was disgusting, wet sound. It had been raining. The rain soaked into Keith’s hair and he couldn’t bring himself to be concerned with that. Lance was out here. The footsteps splashed in a way that reminded Keith of gore. When he first saved Lance. When they first met.

He couldn’t be concerned with the growls filling his ears. They weren’t Lance. Lance was somewhere. The growling was gurgled and distorted as if it was coming from something dying. But it wasn’t Lance. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let it be Lance. He turned his head just to make sure.

It was a little girl. Her head was hanging in a limp fashion, and the growling was high pitched enough to be coming from her. He drew his gun, placing it in a police-like fashion. Just as Shiro had taught him. He wanted to shout, but he knew she was too far gone. Instead, he looked at her gore matted brown hair, her deathly pale skin that had been a warm shade of brown in her life, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed like thunder, fitting in with the storm rolling above his head. The girl stood for a few seconds, before falling onto her knees with a last choked growl, and then collapsing face down onto the concrete. He stood and looked for just a few seconds, before walking. It was life, now. It couldn’t be helped, and at least now she was free.

 

Lance was nowhere to be seen. Keith had gone through eight houses and five bullets. He had all of four left. Now, he had a rusty crowbar he found hanging from his hip as a backup weapon. He had three bullets left to use. Three for them, one for him.

Always save a bullet for yourself. Rule number one. Shiro had drilled that into his head, and in turn, he drilled that into Lance’s head. You never want to run out of bullets. The last bullet in the chamber is going to find its place in your head, should you run out and be cornered.

He carefully stepped inside a house, seeing a hunched figure. It was making no noise, just sitting in the corner of the house and holding its side. As if it were injured. Keith drew his gun, itching to pull the trigger. “Are you hurt?” He spoke, his voice more of a command. The figure only swayed slightly, not turning around or responding. “I said, are you hurt?” A growl rose from his throat at the word ‘hurt’. The figure stayed hunched, slowly turning its head around. Caramel colored skin became apparent, as well as messy, dark brown hair, that needed to be trimmed. “Lance?” Keith felt as if he had the breath knocked out of him. He looked around the living room of the house, seeing another figure slumped limply in the corner. A little boy. His jaw had been hit off by a heavy object, it hanging slack and limp. A telling factor was the gore slathered around his lips.

It had eaten.

The realization dawned on Keith just as a clap of thunder rolled over the area. Lance was cupping his side. The dead had blood and intestine hanging out and around its mouth. “No…”

The Not-Lance stood up slowly, and Keith found himself backing out of the door and slowly lowering his gun. “Please…”

Not-Lance growled, a harrowing sound that wormed its way into Keith’s head and echoed as he had shouted in a cave. Tears clouded Keith’s vision, but they couldn’t get rid of the once vibrant blue eyes that were now a sickening shade of gray. They wouldn’t erase the bite-shaped rip in Lance’s shirt, or the intestines hanging out of the hole in his torso. The once reassuring sound of footsteps on wood became a sickening melody. Thump. It was almost mocking him. Not-Lance took a rough step, its left leg trailing behind it like jelly. Not-Lance had a slack jaw, as if Lance tried to break it before he became the Not-Lance standing in front of Keith. So that he wouldn’t hurt anyone when they came looking for him.

Keith couldn’t speak. He rose the gun again, his hand shaking far too much. He couldn’t aim. His mouth felt dry as if someone shoved cotton in it and stitched it shut. Keith felt his finger lightly squeeze the trigger as he shook. Not-Lance took another shaky step forward, forcing Keith another step backward. The growl was almost deafening, and Keith wanted to cover his ears and run away. Pretend he never saw the Not-Lance, and that __the__  Lance was at the safe house, waiting for him, worried sick. “Lance, please,” Keith cried out, “No!”

It pounced, and Keith knocked it to the side with his pistol on reflex. He cried out as he dropped his gun, taking his newly found crowbar in hand instead. The gun fired from hitting the floor just as Keith started swinging his crowbar, the first hit into the Not-Lance’s skull being a dull thud in comparison to the echoing shot. Keith screamed out again as Not-Lance started twitching its disgusting, worthless arms and he brought the crowbar down once again, and again, and again.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound of a ‘thump’ would never be reassuring to Keith’s racing mind ever again. This thought crossed his mind as he continued to make the Not-Lance’s head mincemeat, now the crowbar hitting the wooden floor in a wet, sickly squish, splashing gore up Keith’s pant leg and all over the floor of the house. The Not-Lance had stopped moving a long time ago, but Keith kept swinging the bloody, dripping crowbar over his head, beating it down into the floor with every ounce of power in his body. He sunk down to his knees as he kept beating the bar into the floor, his angry shouts dissolving sobs, and his hits lacking the power they once held.

The gore that spread over the wood seeped into Keith’s pants, squishing as he draped his body over Lance’s torso. He found himself crying into the fabric of Lance’s shirt, taking in the last bit of his boyfriend’s scent as his sobs echoed in the painfully empty house. Keith laid there, his tears settling into the cloth at the same time as blood seeped into the collar.

 

Keith looked over to his gun, thinking of what he could do. He had three bullets in total. Lance was gone. His reason for living was gone, he realized as the chorus of growls outside came to his attention. He peaked his head up to the window, only to see a horde gathering outside.

Three bullets.

Always save one for yourself.

The horde.

Just in case you’re cornered.

He looked down at Lance’s destroyed corpse. He had done that. He had done that to his own boyfriend. He had brought a weapon into his head over and over again and destroyed and mangled what was once Lance. The gore seeping into the floorboards was his own fault, as were the pieces of white that he recognized as pieces of a skull. Keith was stuck in his thought as the growling got closer, and the banging on the door began. He sat in the floor in the blood of his own boyfriend, looking at the gore he had caused. He settled the heavy metal of his pistol in his hand, feeling the trigger. Three bullets with a horde outside. He was cornered. Keith bounced the gun in his hand, and then with an abrupt motion, Keith placed his own gun to the bottom of his jaw. His finger put an uncomfortable amount of pressure onto the trigger, but he stopped just short of pulling it.

How would they find out what happened to Lance? How would they have a funeral, or how would Lance be remembered? Keith picked himself up. He wiped his face on his sleeve, spreading blood onto the cloth.

 

This was life. This was how it was. He couldn’t stop surviving. Lance wouldn’t want that.

He could hear Lance telling him to keep going. He touched the shark tooth necklace on his neck, looking back to the bracelet on Lance’s wrist. Keith shoved his gun into the waistband of his pants, and walked out of the back door of the house, taking steps towards the safe house. For Lance.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't tag this as "zombie apocalypse" because I feel like that would mean less to people. Is it? Yes, technically it's a Zombie AU. But they don't know that going in. None of you did.
> 
> It's dystopian at first. They're in a safe house. Raiding abandoned cities. You feel the unease with Keith as he realizes something is undeniably wrong. You feel the unease with him as he sees the little girl. And you feel the primal fear he felt as he realized what Lance became, as well as the amount of panic. None of the two characters who speak bring up the irregularity that zombies should be because it's normal for them. To them, it's just another thing in their life. To the readers, it's a shock when we realize Lance wasn't captured by the government.
> 
> Anyway, I was wondering if any of you would like a multi-chapter story set in this universe. It ends the exact same way. You know the ending already. Lance gets bitten and becomes the thing he spent his life killing. Keith puts him out of his misery while taking out his anger at the world, and life goes on.  
> Or if you'd like another dystopian fashion work with either Voltron or Avengers characters. Just let me know.


End file.
